Decisions
by playwright82
Summary: Lily gets trapped in a room alone. The room wants her to choose between Scorpius and Lysander. Who will she choose? Rated T for a light swear word.


**Disclaimer: I am not J.K. Rowling. I swear I am not trying to make any profit off of this. I just love this world and I like to play in it.**

**A/N: This was written for The Test (Challenge) on HPFC. The third test was "One person is trapped in a room alone." I chose the genre romance. My advantage was that the story could be the minimum of 500 words. My disadvantage was that my story had to have at least 3 named characters.**

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><p>Decisions<p>

Lily Luna Potter stopped dead and her tracks. She turned and looked at the door on her right. Where had it come from? She had walked this corridor countless times in her years at Hogwarts and had never seen this door before. It's true that she could have just not been paying attention, but to have missed a door for six years? Maybe the castle felt the need to add a new room with all the new students that had come in this year?

Lily looked at the door. It looked like all the other doors in the corridor except for the gold lettering that spelled out "Deciding Room."

_Deciding Room?_ thought Lily. _What in the world is a deciding room?_

She reached out her hand and touched the knob. She wasn't sure she should open the door. Some of the stories her parents told about their years as students came back to her. She turned the knob. Should she go ahead and push the door open? She pushed the door open. Nothing happened. Lily released a breath she didn't know she had been holding.

She peeked in the room. It looked like a sitting room or the Gryffindor common room. She took a tentative step into the room and the door slammed behind her.

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><p>Just as Lily stepped into the Deciding Room, Scorpius Malfoy and Lysander Scamander, both of whom had been pursuing her for months, saw her disappear and heard the door slam shut. They ran over to the door and tried to unlock it. When that failed, they used every spell they knew to try to open the door. Nothing worked. They finally decided to go to the Headmaster and see if he could do anything.<p>

They burst into the Headmaster's office and Scorpius cried, "Lily's trapped in a room alone! We can't get in to her!"

Professor Severus Snape looked at his potions mistress and they both ran after the boys.

Professor Hermione Snape looked at the door. "Deciding Room?" she asked. "What's that?"

Severus shook his head still looking at the door. "I don't know."

Hermione thought hard. "I think I remember reading about something like this in _Hogwarts: A History_, but I don't remember the exact passage. I'm going to go to the library. You can try to get the door open."

She turned and sprinted up the corridor while Severus and the boys looked at each other. "What exactly happened?" Severus asked.

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><p>Lily turned startled when the door slammed behind her and tried to unlock it, but when it wouldn't open, she figured that someone would come for her eventually. One of her cousins or her brother, Albus, would miss her at dinner. Maybe the room stayed locked for a certain amount of time and would let her out in a couple of hours. She could get a bit of homework done in the peace and quiet.<p>

She decided to sit on the sofa in front of the hearth and wait. She took out her transfiguration homework to get started.

She had only been working on it for about ten minutes when the book was taken gently out of her hands and put back in her bag.

"What the –?" Lily looked around, but no one was in the room with her. She went to reach for her school bag, but it was lifted out of her reach.

_Miss Potter_. Lily looked around for the source of the voice, but again could see no one.

_Miss Potter,_ said the voice again. _You are in this room to make a decision about your future._

"My future?" Lily muttered. "What decision do I have to make about my future?" She knew exactly what she wanted to do when she graduated. She wanted to apprentice in charms and eventually become a Charms professor at a Wizarding school somewhere in the world. Her future was set.

_Your future is still undetermined,_ the voice said. That's when she realized the voice was in her head.

_You have two potential mates outside this door and their futures are as bleak as yours if you do not make a decision. You have to decide. Choose one and live out your days as a wife and mother with a position as a Charms Mistress. Choose the other and live as a wife and mother while traveling the world. Choose nothing and remain alone as a Charms Mistress. You will remain in this room as long as it takes to make your decision._

_Potential mates?_ Lily thought. The confused look left her face as she realized the voice meant Scorpius and Lysander. Lily had been brushing off the advances of the two boys since fifth year. She liked them, but she didn't want to hurt either of them by choosing one over the other. They were great friends and she didn't want to destroy their friendship. Plus, they were a year ahead of her and could meet any number of girls between their graduation and hers.

"Who are you? Why do I have to choose between those two? Couldn't I just choose another boy?"

_I am the castle. Those two boys are ones that will make you happiest. No one else will make you as happy. The one who is not chosen will understand. He will be hurt, but he will remain a friend._

This damn room was going to make her choose a boyfriend? Why now? Why not after graduation or after her apprenticeship? She waited for a minute before sitting back down on the sofa with a huff. Of course the room wouldn't answer those questions. She just sat staring into the fire for a while not really trying to decide anything.

She looked around again and noticed a desk beneath a window with a view of the Forbidden Forest. She walked over to it and noticed a sheet of parchment with a quill and inkwell on it. _Well at least this room will provide what I need. Will I get food and water if I need it? _she wondered.

She got no answer from the room, so with a sigh she sat at the desk and put two lines down the page dividing the parchment into three columns. At the top of the first column she wrote _Scorpius_, at the top of the second column she wrote _Lysander_, and at the top of the last column she wrote _neither_. She then divided each column in half by drawing a line across the middle of the page. She wrote _Pros_ on the top half of each column and _Cons_ on the bottom half. _I may as well make a list to help me choose_, she thought.

Lily often made lists when there was a tough choice to make. She would also speak aloud to herself while working out the pros and cons. She did so now. "Well either way I will still get to see my family. I could never live without seeing them whenever I like." She wrote that in all pros columns.

"If I were to choose Scorpius I would get to be a mother. I would get to teach Charms. I will never want for anything. Our parents have become friends over the years since the end of the war. On the other hand, I will be with a Slytherin. Plus he's a little arrogant since he's a Malfoy. And he's a giant flirt." She wrote everything under the appropriate heading as she was speaking.

"If I choose Lysander I would still get to be a mother. I would get to travel the world. I would get to see and learn about so many different magical creatures. Our parents have been friends since their days at Hogwarts. On the other hand, I'll still be with a Slytherin. I won't get to work in Charms. Also, he believes in some of the fantasy creatures his mum believes in.

"If I choose neither boy I will still get to work in Charms. I just won't get to be a mother. I'll be alone my entire life and I wouldn't be happy."

She sat staring at the pros and cons under the boys' names for a while. She went back over to the sofa and sat staring at the flames while mulling everything over. Finally, she looked away from the flames. "I've made my decision."

_Very good._ Her bag floated down to the sofa and she grabbed it before heading over to the door and putting her hand on the knob.

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><p><em>Meanwhile…<em>

Hermione came back a while later with a copy of _Hogwarts: A History_ in her hands. The boys had just finished telling the headmaster how they had both been after Lily since she was fifteen.

The Potions professor cleared her throat to gain the attention of the three in front of her. The headmaster and the two young men looked at her expectantly. "This room has appeared for Lily alone. She needs to make a big decision that could affect not only her life, but the lives of others as well."

Severus looked at the two boys in front of him. "I think I know what the decision is. The castle wants her to choose one of these young men to be her husband. There must be something important that her offspring will have to do in the future."

"What would happen if she didn't choose either of them? One of her choices will be neither," Hermione said.

Severus shrugged. "The castle would just choose another to carry out the task, but it would ensure that she was not happy with the choice."

The boys looked at each other. "So she has to choose between us?" asked Scorpius.

"But that seems so wrong," added Lysander.

Severus sometimes thought the two blondes in front of him should have been born as twins rather than Lysander and Lorcan. Then he shuddered at the thought. That's probably why they weren't twins.

"Sorry, boys, but she's going to choose one of you," said Hermione. "I've known all three of you since you were born. She will choose one of you, because she doesn't want to be unhappy, but it will take her a while to do so. I think the headmaster and I will wait for you in his office," Severus nodded at this, "while you wait here for her to come out and give you her choice."

Hermione and Severus headed back to his office while the boys sank to the floor with their backs pressed to the wall opposite the door Lily was behind.

Finally, the door opened and Lily stood in front of them. "Good, you're both here. I've made a decision about us."

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><p><strong>AN: I decided to leave this open a bit. She could conceivably choose either boy, but I felt I would leave it up to the reader. I know who I would want her to pick, but that's just me. I'm not going to say anything though. I don't want to sway the reader. Another reason I wrote it this way is that it was really difficult to have one person trapped in a room alone yet need three named characters. So I wrote the others as waiting for her to emerge.**


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